The defense is fighting a mistrial because it believes eleven jurors favor acquittal. The petition is a long shot, but it preserves the one argument that could bar a retrial entirely.
The defense asked to remove a juror two days running. The judge said no both times. A 2019 SJC decision explains why, and why the reported 11 to 1 split is not a finding of any kind.
No verdict on a sixth day. The second note triggered the deadlock instruction, but its wording is softer than the note that forced a mistrial in the case the SJC decided last year.
The measure raises no taxes and polls at 67 percent. Its final subsection lets the Legislature decline to fund it, and supporters confirmed at a hearing that this was the intent.
Question 2 has the softest support on the ballot, and the poll that measured it described a bar advocate pay raise the measure does not contain. Bar advocates are not covered at all.
Massachusetts is the only state where all three branches claim exemption from the public records law. The question is not whether Question 1 passes. It is what the policy-development exemption swallows.
Four district attorney races were contested. In three counties the September primary decides who exercises charging discretion for the next four years, because nobody else filed.
The framing that Wu backed insurgents against the establishment is wrong. In one of the three races she endorsed the incumbent, and he is the one who lost.
Koh lost a congressional primary by 145 votes in 2018. This time he won by more than 13,000. The late withdrawal that reshaped the field did not change the outcome.
Every incumbent who faced a challenger survived. Democratic turnout ran 106,000 ahead of 2022 and Republican turnout ran 20,000 behind. Four races still have no winner.
